Saturday, December 14, 2002

 
Saturday's newspaper headline was still about the water cut. Seems to be a Suva wide problem ... but we are lucky in the Domain.

We did quite some shopping: Microwave, Blender, fruit, bula shirts :) it was full again but fun .. we met my Dad and Merih for lunch at "the edge" where we had a sandwich called "pretty woman" (that should have been called "fat chick") ... and i had the Doner Kebab .. and dad had sesame shrimp and Merih only wanted fries ...

They went back to the (waterless) hotel and we explored the handicrafts market ... what a fun place .. the longer you ask around, the prices go down .. fun ... a kava bowl we liked started at 120F$. We later got it for 35$ with some extra bilos (oh, bilos are the coconut halfshells that you drink kava from) .. some tall statue we kinda liked dropped very quickly from 170 F$ to 70F$ (that guy showed me his wallet with only 1 US$ in it and used that as a reason why he would sell it so cheap .. he claimed he was broke .. :)

The weird news story today was "Man kills, eats gay partner" ... a german guy (what's wrong with german people anyway?) found through the 'evil' internet a volunteer who wants to be eaten .. they agreed on eating his penis first together (how hungry can one be once a very sensitive organ has been removed ?? ) ... HOW WEIRD IS THAT ???

Anyways ... we spent the rest of the day around the house, me watching parts of the extended version of "Fellowship of the Ring" (great) and then later made fish sticks with veggies



#posted by Peter 9:00 PM

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Friday's Newspaper headline was "No water, Tourists are leaving", water cuts in and around Suva .. yippieh .. and the one hotel that was most affected was the Raffles Tradewinds, the one my dad stayed in.



So, in the afternoon I went to pick them up again to take a shower in our house ... and then we went for dinner to our old hotel, the Suva Motor Inn. I went with the pepper steak, while Ritsu had her favorite braised chicken and Kurt & Merih shared a curry dish ...



I explained the whole Kava ceremony to them, but they were not willing to try it ... well .. i had 2 or 3 bilo's of it.

I checked with this hotel, if they had rooms available ... but they were all booked out ... but i heard that even the Holiday Inn was without water (actually pretty much every hotel in Suva). This i think is one of the great things living in Domain (where so many politicians and diplomats live) ... that's the last place they would cut the water :)



After dinner we tried to call for cabs .. but that was the next shortage ... the hotel receptionist tried 2 different places .. no taxis available .. so we walked towards the town center .. and there we got 2 cabs.

When we got home we said "hi" to our froggies .. by letting the water run outside .. they come out and look around .. so cute ... then we laid down on our driveway (the concrete was still warm from the sun) and we watched the stars ... we could see Orion ... but we still have to figure out which stars are the Southern Cross.

#posted by Peter 8:39 PM

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Friday, December 13, 2002

 

Thursday offered a really fun picture to start with ... a guy climbing up a tree to get 3 tree blossoms for those 3 girls to put in their ears .. so cute !!! We had been driving by car to town, I then spent some time at internetfiji and then ran some errands, looking for kitchen stuff and such. I also bought my first sulu (picture coming some day :) Later I went back to Asco Motors for some additional paperwork and then back home. Around 1 PM i left to drive to Lami to wait for my Dad to arrive .. his plane landed in Nadi at 10 .. so I hoped he would arrive around 1:30 - 2:30 PM

Well .. in the end it was 3:45 PM .. but I spent my time at the very nice Raffle's Tradewind's bar and got to chat with a very nice middle aged fijian guy, who turned out to be a member of parliament :) I told him that fiji needs to change its policy on internet monopoly .. and he just said that this will be deregulated in 2004. I think that proper streets and water connections where more interesting for him and his province than downloading mp3s ...

So, my dad Kurt and his wife Merih arrived finally and I helped them settling in ... they brought me loads of stuff. Besides heaps of xmas cookies and cuban cigars and cachaça (which i need for caipirinas) they also delivered some which friends had accumulated / downloaded for me and sent to him .. Big thanks to Andy, Katalina and of course Fish for doing all this ... I now have 27 CDs full of software / mp3s / US tv-shows to wade through ... great ...

Next fun fact was that the water at the hotel was not running ... "oh, pressure is down, will be back up later, we can bring you a big bucket full of water" ... wow .. so, we took the towels and drove to our house, so they could shower there ..

For dinner we went to Daikoku. I had brought my dad several times to Benihana in NY and I knew he would love it. We had a fun dinner night and tried to converse in at least 5 languages (we threw in some french just for silliness)



All in all lots of fun, Dad and Merih gave up on using chopsticks half way through though ..

Afterwards we got a taxi for them to return to the hotel and we were ready to go to .. but suddenly we noticed rotating lights (and no, not too much fiji bitter) .. there was some kind of fairground close to the water !!!



And we went to take a look ... it was so cute .. and small ... they had a couple of ferries wheels, which i think were operated a bit too fast to turn them into a thrill ride ... all other rides were based mainly on the old merry-go-round idea .. a train, some planes, horses ... it was very cute .. and of course many food places nestled in between ... I put together a little videoclip of it .. though I am not sure if anyone is really watching those :)

We just stayed a short while and then took a cab to go home.



#posted by Peter 6:39 AM

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Wednesday, December 11, 2002

 
Wednesday ... another day of fun filled adventure ... I left the house with the working lady to say hello to the guys at the office .. since ... later I ran some errands, one was to go with Vikash to J Maneklal at Honson Arcade to look for a nice TV .. and lo and behold, they had a nice 29" widescreen in a pricerange not too far off from what I had initially planned ...

I later met Ritsu for lunch and snapped that nice panorama / weather picture from her office




We had the grill platter at "The Edge" and then we just bought that TV and had it delivered right away .. pretty nice .. a Grundig Elegance 70 which fit neatly into the right spot. I tested it our right away with all sorts of different DVDs using my iBook as the DVD player.

I got a call from our car place that the Car will be ready for pickup around 4:30 PM so caught a Taxi at 4 and went to get our new vehicle. There was some paperwork to be done (and I insisted on the car being filled up) and at 5 PM I left with our Toyota Echo. The driving was fun, but very strange ... I kinda get used to driving on the left side ... and having the steering wheel on the right and the stickshift on the left ... but some how I keep using the windshield wipers when I want to indicate which direction I intend to go :) Timing was great to pick up Ritsu and she was just as happy and excited about the car as I was ...

We went straight to Cost-U-Less and did some more household shopping .. this time we could do some serious bulk shopping ... like water and sodas ... but we were both pretty tired from the day and we were happy when we got home.

I started making us dinner, garlic bread and pasta with a cream/ ham sauce ... not bad for the limited kitchen stuff we are having ... We tried to stay up until the local late news at 10 .. but we were just way too tired :)




#posted by Peter 10:46 PM

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Tuesday, December 10, 2002

 
Tuesday was another "busy around the house" day. I woke up with that darn rooster around 3 AM ... then around 7 was time for breakfast .. finally I could make some eggs .. Ritsu was obviously very happy




Later the gardener guys came again and tried to talk me into coming every 2 weeks and provide lunch .. no way :) but I ended up staying in at the house to see if the guys were doing there job ...

In the evening we took a cab to go to the japanese ambassador's residence, to celebrate the emperor's birthday ... we had no idea that this was quite a big event ... we encountered some security .. and i think more than 100 people showed up .. plus at least 30 waitstaff and 20 security people ...

The place was really nice and quite spacious .. and had a kick ass view of Suva Bay and the sunset.






The event was relatively short: first 30 minutes was "arriving, mingling, drinks" ... part 2 was "speeches and anthems" .. they toasted to the emperor and fiji ... playing the japanese and fijian anthem, inviting people to sing along :) .. actually more people sang along with the fijian anthem, I spotted many non-fijians singing, but maybe this is part of being a diplomat around here.

We had no idea who else was invited .. i'd say only 30% were japanese, the rest was diplomatic corps and fijian politicians ... and it took me a while to realize that the guy behind me sipping his redwine (see picture below) is the fijian prime minister. I did not get to talk to him, though he was mingling a lot.





(the only photoshop work on this pic is the lightening up of the background and the removal of the sunburn on my nose)


But soon everybody was kindly kicked out and we returned home.


#posted by Peter 11:17 PM

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Monday, December 09, 2002

 
Monday was our first night / day in the new house, and it was surely interesting. I woke up at 2 AM because some rooster close by thought it was sunrise and he was crowing his lunges out .... until 6 AM ... interlude was a pack of stray dogs starting a howling concert, which later was joined by pretty much every dog in Suva. Having a nice sunburn did not help my sleeping either and spending some hours on the computer to get the pictures from the last weekend straight did not make me as sleepy as I wanted ...

So i just stayed up ... around 6 Ritsu woke up and I made breakfast and we enjoyed our first morning in the new house .. a bit later the landlady's daughter called (it is normal here to call people at 7 - 8 AM) and told us that the gardener would come by ... there went my idea of a nap ...

Once Ritsu took a taxi to work, I tried to get in touch with our car guy ... turned out there was some delay (what a surprise) and we should get the car on wednesday ... I asked him to kick quite some booty since we need the car ...

Then the whole landlady family appeared plus gardeners ... after sorting stuff out, I took a cab to Cost-U-Less and did some more household / dinner shopping, which was lots of fun .. too bad many of the items i wanted just came in wholesale size (hey, soy sauce in gallons)

I returned and did some laundry and lunch was some toast with peter-made salmon cream-cheese and proscciuto .. shortly after some guys came to fix a gate .. then the water and electricity guys came to do a reading ... then the landlady returned ... with her a guy bringing the laundry machine (plus setting up the dryer) and we chatted about little things about the house ..
After they left the guys from the security system came and we had a long and hard discussion .. they tried to get us into the previous tenants 3 year contract ... no way ..

Finally I had some time to get something done I had no time or chance for for a looong time .. COOOKING !!! ... though I just bought one pot/pan combo thingie, i felt like i can cook again ... since we have not found a thai place yet (doubt there is one) and I know that Ritsu loves noodles, I made Pad Thai ... with shrimps (well, here they call them prawns .. I still reject that word though) and chicken ... and it turned out quite nicely :)






We had a very nice dinner .... but both of us had not gotten much sleep the night before .. we spent some time online .. how much fun to send IMs while you are just 10ft apart ... saves yelling ...



#posted by Peter 10:03 PM

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Sunday, December 08, 2002

 
Following is the 3 day report of our trip to Savusavu and our stay at the Jean Micheal Costeau Resort. Photos will be up in one big photoalbum on this website.

Friday:
We got up at 6:45 and did final packing ... we were ready when our cab came at 7:45 (the same guy who was driving us to the house before, Ramesh, we asked him if he would drive us to the airport, since we liked his car) ...
he was there in time and we where as projected at the airport at 8:30 .. we were informed that our flight is at 9:15 .. well .. to our bedazzlement it turned out the flight was at 8:30, arriving at Savusavu at 9:15 .. yeah! ... I called the resort that did the booking for us and raised hell, since the counter people told us that the 8:30 flight was gone, and the next flight, 2:30 PM was already fully booked out !!! woah !!!

Then we were even more surprised when we heard the final boarding call for the Savusavu flight .. so, it was still there ... and we raised hell again to get on .. but no way ... but to our surprise the resort person got in direct touch with the airline counter and tried to get us on ... well .. in the end they got us on the 2:30 PM flight ...

So, we had to wait 6 hours at the airport and were pretty pissed off, on the other hand we experienced stuff wrapped in roti (indian, pancake style bread) as a great hamburger substitute. We even ran into one of Ritu's coworkers, again, the island is way too small ..

After that long long wait things went pretty smooth .. our flight was on time, and we had a great little plane with big windows to see what is going on ... funny to see the clouds are only hovering over landmass, not over the water ...

We landed at Savusavu (the airport is a small shag) and for a brief second we feared that we had lost one suitcase .. but it was hidden in the front compartment of the plane ..







Now, the fun resort experience started .. we were picked up by a welcome lady and a driver in a nice AC bus, got cold wet towels to wipe away the sweat and some cold fiji water as refreshment .. we then drove down pothole alley to the resort, passing through Savusavu city (way smaller than Suva) ... after 25 minutes we arrived at the resort and were greeted by 5 guys on guitars singing some "bula" song just for us (there were no other people arriving with us) .. and some nice lady came with some super freshly squeezed / blended juices as a welcome drink ...

The sign in was done on a very large / open / friendly desk (not the usual hotel / counter style) and we got a tour of the premises before we were shown our Bure (that is a fijian style hut, brought up a bit to tourist standards, but willingly not having things like AC, telephone or TV.) ... since we had that "incident" with the flight (which was clearly a communication error on the resort / resort - airline side) they upgraded us to ocean front room (we were supposed to have gardenview)

These Bures are hard to describe .. though it sounds basic .. it is just wonderfull .. none of the windows has glass .. it is all mosquito net, to keep the bugs out, but let the wind go through ... they have shutters in case it is getting cold (yeah right) or to keep people from watching. The space it pretty big, a kingsize bed and another small bed and then a small room with another queen size bed .. so .. actually 5 people could fit ...

The lady who showed us around was very nice .. she had that great idea of "anything to eat ? a fruit platter ?" but that platter never came ..

next we checked out the dive shop to make sure we can dive tomorrow .. it was a bit confusing, we started a little discussion about diving / flying, regarding low level flights (like the ones from island to island) but we will just have to see.

After freshening up we took a walk along the beach and then went for dinner. On our way we heard drums and saw a half-naked fijian running around the outline of the premises, lighting all the torches around the resort, that was the fijian torch lighting ceremony. Since we were early we had drinks at the bar and then the marine biologist Mike started a slide show (well, while he set up we lost power ... but in the end it worked fine) ,. the slide show on reef critters was quite nice .. but right after that we went for food (which was also included in the package price :)

... we both had samosas as appetizers, then Ritsu had fish / chicken curry and I had a steak (great) and we both had a fantastic fruit sorbet with fruit ... very nice indeed ...

There was a group playing music around the kava bowl .. and unlike I have seen it before, they just sat on the floor and played close to the dining area .. so, we joined .. had some kava but then we focused on playing with one of the cats that belongs to the resorts .. so cute ... early, but tired we went to bed .

Saturday:
After a night of great sleep (I was so happy they had cold drinks in the fridge, which I just need at night) we woke up at 5:30 .. sunrise and loud birds were the main reason ... but we had have enough sleep. Then at 5:45 it started to rain, a real tropical downpour. We got our dive gear ready and at 7 we went to the dive-shop, but that was still closed, so we went first for breakfast. Though I usually do not eat breakfast, that buffet was just too tempting ... on top of it they offered cooked breakfast, but really really nice stuff .. eggs benedictine, grilled ham/cheese/pineapple sandwich. But that just sounded too much. We had a not so nice experience with one staff member, who was very accommodating towards me "yes, Peter, did you sleep well, Peter, want some jam, Peter" .. he even guarded my toast and brought it when done ... but he totally ignored Ritsu and on top of it, he let her toast burn ... She discussed (a.k.a bitched) that concern right away with one of the managers, and 5 minutes later that guy was sitting at our table apologizing ... from then on he was greeting Ritsu all the time, maybe a bit too much, and he still does not get the name right ... ah well ..

While eating the rain stop and the sun came out ... in full force.

Next we booked our massage for the next day and then went to the dive boat ... turned out we were the only 2 divers. So we had a pretty small, but comfortable boat and we went to a dive-site close by (the day before, since they had about 10 people, including a japanese camera crew, they went with the big boat to some dive-sites farther out, about 1 hour away) ... that was "Barracuda Point" .. but it should have been called "Coral Bleach Central" or at least "Bat Fish Point" since we saw many cute batfish (very curious guys, come pretty close), but only one Barracuda. We returned to the resort for surface interval and spent the time at / in the pool to stay cool. We went out again at 10:30 to "Whale's Dale" or something like that ... this dive was nicer and we came across 3 or 4 turtles (one could have been a repeat sighting).

We returned just in time for lunch. Appetizers where Gazpaccio and Crepes filled with Crab and Corn ... mains were Salad with fresh Walu in thai sauce, chicken on pasta or roast beef sandwich ... we both went for the Walu. And we also both went for the banana split dessert (instead of going for choice #2, cookies with frozen berry yoghurt)

After lunch was nap time ... we checked out both beds (the one in the second room is nicely nestled between 3 windows facing the ocean and was getting a very nice breeze) ... I spend some time reading outside and one of the resort cats (the rodent control) came and hopped on my lab and slept there for an hour. I browsed around the gift shop and got Ritsu a stuffed frog (she likes frogs, and that one was just too cute) I placed it next to her while she was sleeping and she made big eyes (just like the frog's) when she saw it. I also witnessed 2 guests leaving and the music guys playing a good bye song while the 2 ladies from San Francisco entered the van. Very moving.

Around 5 we started to walk around the beach and the resort and it started to rain again, shortly after one of the dive guys came and checked if we are still interested in the night dive, since the rain and the wind would pick up (I also guess their 2nd concern was that we were the only 2 divers for that dive and only paying 50% of the dive rate, so they would not make any money). We also learnt that there were only 4 people left in the resort, us and another honeymoon couple. Amazing to see that the resort still worked their butt off to make it feel like a special holiday. There were more staff members than guests now ... We did some more gift shop shopping, then we went to witness the opening of the Lovo.

The Lovo is an old traditional way of cooking food ... you dig a hole in the ground, put first firewood in, then big rocks ... you light the fire and let it burn until the rocks are really hot, then you take the wood away and start piling food on top of it (traditionally it should be wrapped in baskets weaved from banana or coconut leaves, nowadays they use tinfoil ... then again, traditionally it was used for cooking human flesh [no kiddin]) then everything is covered with even more leaves to keep in the heat and left to cook for several hours. It was really nice that they still gave us that little lecture, though we were the only 2 guests watching.

Then the dive video guy John showed a video he did today of the honeymoon couple ... and .. well .. how to be polite ... but a monkey using iMovie on a mac could have done that job better ... (gosh, i hope he never reads that :) ... no, seriously ... the camera work was so so (to often on top of the object filming down) ... and the editing was uninspired, transitions where used using the "what else do i have" principle ... the lack of colors could have used running some filters over the UW stuff .. some shots of the divers topside would have been nice ... but it seems the couple was very happy with it and that is most important.

Dinner time: turns out in that Lovo were fish, chicken, pork and lamb. Again I was amazed that for only the 4 of us they made an array of like 8 different salads (their kokoda was kick ass, less coconutty and more spicy). Sides were dalo and kasawa (both are close to the potato, but need lots of frying in garlic i would reckon to get any kind of flavor), some vegetable curry and rice. Oh, there was an option of having spinach soup before, which Ritsu tried. Did I mention that this resort grows their own produce and they say 35%-40% of all produce used in their food is from their own garden, that is pretty impressive. Not that we really had any space left, but the triple chocolate dessert was plain evil and we couldn't say no. The honeymoon couple had already left (amazing, married for only a week and they already spend their dinners not talking to each other ... while Ritsu and I were yapping away :) and the music guys were playing just for us (and I went over there from time to time to get some kava). After dinner we sat down with them and enjoyed the music and more kava, even Ritsu had 2 bilo's (those are those coconut halfshells you drink kava from), but while I was drinking "high tide" (full bilo) she preferred "low tide" (half bilo) ... everybody was very nice and it is amazing that it seems everybody can sing and play several instruments ... But at some point was said goodnight and they played us a farewell song, since they would not be there on sunday (day of church and rest) .. and as soon as we left they wrapped up and could finally go home.

Sunday:
Did I mention what great, fluffy towels they have here? Not those cheap ones .. but really nice ones.

We woke up not as early as usual and after showering we went to have breakfast. We had heard the night before that we and that honeymoon couple would be the only guests. It was amazing to see what great buffet they still prepared, even for just the 4 of us ... and still printing daily changing menus. Again we were to busy with the buffet, so we ordered no other food items.

We then tried out the kayaks which was a lot of fun and a nice exercise, no photos though thanks to the wet environment. We then started packing, lounged around and at 11:30 we went to get our included bonus one hour massage! Wow .. that was an experience ... nothing compared to those 10$ - 10 minute back rubs you get on every street corner in New York. Those ladies kneaded and stretch pretty much every muscle in our bodies for 1 hour, using all kinds of fruity scented oils while nice music was playing ... I was just surprised that I did not fall asleep. I think my sunburn turned some of the treatment into pain ... but that was my own fault.

Lunchtime again at 12:45. The choices were Tomato-Basil soup or Salad and then fishburger, vegetable pizza or chicken over salad. We both opted for the fishburger, which was huge .. and the burger was made out of leftover fish parts from the day before, mixed with onions and other yummy things, the tartar sauce contained olives and pineapple .. very interesting combination. The honeymoon couple had left by then, but a new couple had just arrived. But they would spend the coming night all alone at the resort.

I settled the dive store and hotel account and then final packing. As goodbyes 2 guys we have never seen before played a farewell tune and off we went again over the pothole ridden street through Savusavu to the airport. The plane was on time and the smallest thing Ritsu had ever flown. A lonesome pilot steered the 8 passenger aircraft at 4500 ft ... it was a beautiful 45 minute flight and a very smooth touchdown. At the airport a german guy who was sitting behind us suggested sharing a taxi and at 4:45 PM we were back in Suva. But not back to the hotel .. no, we went to our new house where the landlady and her daughter already waited.

They showed us how the alarm worked (weird feeling to have an alarm system) and the hot water and everything. We settled in as good as possible and then had dinner at Great Wok, our favorite sunday spot. Tired, full, happy and sunburnt was finally went to sleep for the first time after 10 weeks NOT in a hotel bed, but in our own house.

#posted by Peter 7:28 PM

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